He hadn't thought about what he'd do if the driver didn't ignore him...
Well, I guess I'm about to find out who won the conflict on invasion day... Please, please be a human! Or if you've got to be an alien, be one that doesn't kill humans on sight...
He put his hands up in the air, as he'd seen people do in movies to show they weren't hostile, and gritted his teeth as the shiny red car wafted closer, slowing smoothly to a halt.
And yet, as he looked, there didn't appear to be anybody in the driver's seat. Or any of the other seats. Curtis frowned with mistrust.
The car bleeped loudly, twice, and a clunking sound came from its front and back doors. Curtis cautiously moved closer to where it stood, hands still aloft, squinting to try and see a driver that he was becoming more and more sure wasn't there.
"Hello?" he said, unsure who he was speaking to, but not yet willing to accept he was attempting to speak to a bright red electric car.
The car made a chirpy run of bleeps. Its doors clunked again twice, and then the door on the passenger side slowly opened out, revealing a clean and decidedly empty interior.
I guess it's a self driving car, but, what is it doing here, and who owns it? Why did it stop for me?
But he could tell, getting closer, that it was cool inside the car, and the passenger seat looked so inviting to his exhausted body, that he knew there was no point thinking it over any further. He would regret it if he didn't get in this car.
"Wait there," he said, for a moment forgetting that talking to a car was weird.
It bleeped a happy sounding reply.
Moments later, he'd retrieved his bag from his patch of shade, put it on the back seat, and was sitting in the front, feeling oddly guilty about being so dusty and sweaty in its pristine, air conditioned luxury. There was no steering wheel, but there was a screen in front of him in the center of the dash. He touched the screen and it sprang to life, with a welcome message splashing up, which didn't reveal anything useful, and then a menu system.
This is more like it, I know where I am with computers. And actually, the interface doesn't look that different to the archives in Sanctuary. But there's no way this technology can be the same age as what I'm used to, it wouldn't have survived out here, and the car looks new... Maybe this kind of thing was the peak of it, or something, and it just never needed to get any different?
He was looking down the list of options in the menu, which seemed to mostly control things that weren't especially interesting to him like the air conditioning and the brightness of the screen itself, when a message popped up, taking up the whole screen.
WHERE DO YOU WANT TO GO?
Right, it must need me to give it a destination. Trouble is, I don't know the name of that town.
The car bleeped a couple of times as he thought. The message changed.
DO YOU NEED MEDICAL ASSISTANCE?
"No! No, I just need a moment to think, for fuck's sake," he said in exasperation at the nagging system.
OK
"Wait, this is voice controlled? Ha, cool. It's almost like you can properly understand me."
I CAN HEAR YOU LOUD AND CLEAR! SHALL WE GET GOING TO YOUR DESTINATION, SIR OR MADAM?
Must be an AI that has some kind of natural language processing engine. I wonder if I can learn anything about the world by talking to it? From the way it talks it seems like it is used to giving rides to people, maybe it's some kind of self driving taxi? It said 'sir' or 'madam', and I bet if someone owned this thing for their own use they'd make it say their own name. Would make a lot more sense that it stopped for me, too. So I probably just need to say something it can locate, even if I don't know the name of a town, and it'll take me there... Now, where will there be people, but enough people that I can make myself scarce if they turn out to be... not human?
"Is there, I don't know, a supermarket around here?"
CONFIRM DESTINATION: LUCKY BUY FAMILY SUPERMARKET
JOURNEY TIME 19 MINUTES 22 SECONDS
"Uh, yeah, I guess that'll work..."
FASTEN YOUR SEATBELT AND HAVE A PLEASANT RIDE
Not one to question the orders of a car, Curtis figured out how to fasten the seatbelt, and the car began to move. It was even more eerily silent on the inside.
I just need to make sure I can always find my way back to that mountain, until I've rescued Maddy. Luckily, it's the biggest thing around.
He tried to stay awake and take in what he could of his surroundings, but the car was so comfortable, and he was so desperately in need of rest, that the journey passed with him in a kind of trance - not quite allowing himself to fall asleep, but certainly not thinking or observing very much.
The car pulled off of the main road when it reached a building, set back from the road with what was probably supposed to have been a parking lot in front of it.
But this building, though the incredibly jaded sign had clearly once read LUCKY BUY SUPERMARKET, was not exactly what Curtis had been hoping for. It looked long abandoned, and worse, the asphalt of its former parking lot had a huge fissure in the middle, as if it had been hit by some kind of blast. Somehow, the glass windows and doors were intact, though, and even more strangely, they, unlike anything else about the exterior, were clean.
DESTINATION REACHED
HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO PAY, TODAY?
Oh fuck! Of course you have to pay for these things... And I don't have any way to do that, unless it accepts any of the crap in my bag?
"Um, actually, Car, I... I need to get to somewhere with other people. I don't have any money on me so I need to... Speak to a guy or something."
NEW DESTINATION?
"Yes! Yes, new destination, um, maybe we could go to..."
The car let out a long bleep.
SETTLE BALANCE BEFORE NEW TRIP
Frustrated, he realized that the car wouldn't take him anywhere further until he offered up some form of payment, and that he was effectively stranded at this abandoned old store. The only plan he could think of was one that might possibly have been a crime.
I guess if I break in to the place there might be some money or something that I can use to pay the car in there... At the very least it might have some crap in it I can take by way of supplies. If not I could hold out in there until another car comes along and hope that one has people in it. It would probably be a relatively safe place to rest up for the night, too.
He'd been prepared that he'd probably have to do some questionable things to survive out here, and so he didn't need to talk himself into it too much. Telling the car he'd be back with its payment in just a moment, he took out his bag and found one of the tools Madeleine had packed for him, a nice screwdriver. He held it tight, and bashed the end of the handle hard against one of the windows, barely holding back a satisfied grin as it shattered. No alarm sounded, so he kicked away what was left of the glass and stepped through into the inside of what had once been the LUCKY BUY.
He was remarking to himself how oddly clean the place looked from his position by the entrance, and how well stocked with everything but fresh produce, when there was a flash of movement in his peripheral vision. A moment later, his legs had given out and his face was heading towards the bright blue floor.
At least I avoided the glass...
And that was his last thought before his consciousness left him.
Chapter 10
"I think he's waking up."
A light, worried female voice reached his stirring mind, just a fraction of a second before he realized he was in quite a lot of pain, his head hurting like the worst fever he'd ever had, and his skin feeling like it had been flayed off.
"Fliss?" he croaked, his eyes shut fast against what he knew was a bright light, his mind tangled.
"Poor thing - you needn't have stunned him, Sarge, look, he's a human!"
"Well, intruder protocols are intruder protocols, it's exactly what I'm supposed to do to humans who break in! So, there haven't been any for tens of thousands of days... Apparen
tly my programming doesn't care," said a deep, male voice.
"At least I'm here to take care of him. And I get to use some of the stuff, too!" this female voice was different from the first, and closer to him. As she spoke, he felt a wonderful coolness on his left forearm. She was touching him, applying some kind of salve.
He opened his eyes just a crack, and after letting the initial splitting pain from the light pass, opened them all the way.
The woman touching him was the first thing he saw, and she was beautiful. Her skin was brown, and her hair long and straight, underneath what appeared to be a white hat which formed part of... was that a nurse's uniform? No, it was more like a parody of a nurse's uniform from a porno, like something people in the old world would wear for Halloween (that time when all the women dressed up really sexy, according to the archives). Her brown, heaving cleavage was almost bursting out of the outfit, and a hint of red lacy bra showed. His mouth fell open, and it took him a moment to tear himself away from that pleasant sight to take in who else he had for company.
The other woman was standing behind her, looking down at him, where he felt he must be lying on some kind of bed. She looked just as much like something out of one of the erotic fantasies he'd seen played out in videos and animation before. She was wearing some kind of black and white maid uniform, with a similarly deep cleavage on display, and her hair was an unnatural, lurid pink, her skin pale, though not as pale as the people in Sanctuary.
The man who had spoken though, he couldn't see. The two women were blocking his view, and he ached too much to try and shift around to get a look at him. Curtis didn't really mind - sure, he was curious about who the third person was, the person who, if he'd heard correctly had stunned him, but he wasn't into guys, and the women were certainly nice to look at.
"Oooooh, look, he's getting hard! Do you think we should use our special protocols?" said the girl in the maid outfit, with a cute giggle.
Curtis's thoughts were still very hazy, but when she said that he realized he was naked, and that, well, yes, he was sporting an erection.
"I have to treat him first. But then yes, we should use our special protocols. Unless he would prefer for Sarge to do it."
"I'm ready to go if required," said the unseen man.
"What are you all saying? Who are you people? What's going on?" Curtis finally managed to ask, his own voice sounding dry and raspy.
"Apologies, it is just that we haven't seen a human in so very long. Our programming allows us to help you competently, and so I am applying my special salve to your sunburn, but as for the effects of Sarge's stunner, well, I don't have any medical protocols for that, so you'll just have to relax until it wears off," the nurse said, slathering more of the clear, cooling goo she called her special salve onto his other arm.
The salve did indeed feel good, and he was more than prepared to believe that 'Sarge' had stunned him, but nothing else she was saying made any sense.
"You haven't seen a human in... are you aliens?"
"Oh, Mercy, he is confused! Whatever will we do?" the maid asked theatrically, her pretty face the image of concern.
The nurse seemed to have a calmer disposition, and Curtis could tell she was going to be the one that'd give him the best answers, if only he knew where to begin with the questions.
"Is this place still the supermarket?" he asked, thinking back to the last thing he remembered.
"You are in our home above the Lucky Buy Family Supermarket, yes! Did you come here in search of wares and find us closed?" the nurse replied.
"Kind of... Look, I'm not from around here so you'll have to be really patient with me and explain a lot of stuff. And I'm sorry if this question is rude, but I have to ask again - are you humans or aliens?"
"I am flattered that you might mistaken us for humans, it means our creator did a very good job with our designs! I am not flattered that you might mistaken us for aliens, however..."
"I've never seen an alien, so I assure you, I didn't mean any offense..."
"Oh, that's different then. I thought you were saying we could pass for those horrible blue monsters... Our creator would not have done a good job at all, then."
Not human... protocols... their designs... then maybe...
"Are you robots?" he said, his voice coming out oddly excited, as he enjoyed both the possibility that there were two sexy android women here taking care of him, and his own cleverness at reaching a conclusion about what these people could be.
"Ah, good, seems like he's less confused now!" said the maid, smiling innocently.
"We are the human assistance crew assigned to the Lucky Buy Supermarket and designed to the specifications of its proprietor Mr Andre Montgomery. I am Mercy, a medic. I am designed to provide medical assistance to all humans, prioritizing Mr Andre Montgomery. Sarge is the security for the Lucky Buy Supermarket. He is designed to prevent the loss of assets and the protection of the wealth of Mr Andre Montgomery."
"And I'm the cleaner! My name is... well, Mr Montgomery used to call me lots of different things, and my designation is 94FJMPINK so the others call me Pinky."
"So Mr Montgomery owns the supermarket, and he bought you three to help him run it... That makes sense, is there like, a cashier android somewhere around here, too?"
He couldn't help but pay attention to the feel of Mercy's touch now. It felt just like a human's. What kind of sophisticated robots were these? He'd thought the AI in the car was impressive but this was something quite different!
"I'm sorry, I powered down the Cheery Transaction Cashbots seventy-five years ago... There were no more customers and their endless wittering about frequent shopper cards was a waste of electricity. They were not very interesting to talk to... Mr Montgomery said he put more of an investment into us because we were his special servants, and those silly things the customers used only needed to be basic machines..." Pinky the maid said.
"Seventy-five years? The supermarket has been closed that long and you are still here? What happened to Mr Montgomery?"
"Oh, no, I just powered them down seventy-five years ago, the Lucky Buy has been closed since the blue monsters came."
Blue monsters, that's what they call the aliens... This place has been closed since the invasion. Since Sanctuary was first formed. What the fuck?
"But... how have you lasted this long? Why are you still here?"
"All of the models of human assistance robot were involved in fighting off the blue monsters. The humans couldn't fight them, it seemed, but some of the robots could. We all have a tertiary set of protocols, after our main role, and our special pleasure protocols, that causes us to fight selflessly to defend humans. Once the blue monsters realized our strength and retreated out of this territory, the humans had all been annihilated, or had fled. But our instructions don't have any rules for what to do if there are no humans to serve. Until someone else takes us and becomes our new master, we just keep doing what Mr Montgomery ordered us to do. Pinky keeps the supermarket clean, Sarge patrols the store, and I grow things to make my special salves and medicines out of. We do other things too, because we always had a bit of time off, so we sometimes go and meet up with other members of our community, or help out with the ongoing work to improve our electrical infrastructure and develop enhanced programming to help robotkind keep advancing. All so that when we do have a human to serve again, we can do it even better. So you can see why it is very important to us that we take good care of you."
"So... there are no humans around here, and haven't been since the invasion? But no aliens, I mean, blue monsters, either? There's just robots with nothing to do?"
Curtis was sitting up on the bed now, his mind fully awake, and the possibilities that could be opening up to him racing through his mind. A world with just subservient yet powerful robots who wanted someone to command them? A world just waiting for a human to come along and take it? Was that really what had been out here all this time, just outside Sanctuary?
"This territory
has been left untouched by the blue monsters since we successfully repelled the invasion. We understand from communications with robotkind in other major settlements that this has been the case for them too, but that blue monsters also have their strongholds in some regions around the world where no humans or robots - at least, no human made robots - exist anymore. There is a theory that the blue monsters actually came in search of a resource found on Earth, rather than to inhabit all of our land, and so the regions where they retreated after meeting our resistance may just be areas that didn't have that resource to begin with, so the blue monsters didn't think it was worth risking their people to fight us for them..."
"And, to be clear, you haven't seen any humans other than me before?"
This was about as close to a perfect situation as he could imagine.
"Yes. We are certain humans still live in some parts of the world - there have been other robot communities who have been reclaimed by people, but after that happens, they tend to sort of... stop communicating with our network. We do not interfere with that, if there are humans taking back robots for their own purposes, this is the proper way of things. But you, where were you for all this time?"
Curtis paused. He could tell them all about Sanctuary, but then they would probably want to go there immediately and bring all of the humans out into their world. And was that really the best idea, for him? Imagining Janice with a bunch of robot cops trying to become mayor of... wherever the fuck they were, was frankly terrifying, and besides, everyone in Sanctuary was getting along just fine, weren't they? He wanted to rescue Maddy straight away, and he also wanted to save his dad, and maybe a few other people, but cracking Sanctuary open like a wasps' nest and bringing all those old, set in their ways people out here, along with Fliss and Sophie, who he was still mad at, would mean he wouldn't have the freedom this place was offering him. No, he had to handle this differently. He'd take command of these robots, find out more about the world, gain what power he could. Then, if he felt like the time was right, then he'd let Janice and her followers decide if they wanted to live under his rule out here, or hers, in there. He'd come up with a plan to get Madeleine out that wouldn't involve his new robot friends finding out there were others.
Android Alien Apocalypse Harem - Arc 1 Box Set Page 5